LETTER XLVI.
March 16.
EVERY thing conspires to drive me to extremities. I met Miss B.
-- walking to-day. I could not help joining her, and expressing
my sense of her altered manner towards me. "Oh! Werter," said
she, with eagerness, "you who know my heart, how could you so ill
interpret my distress? What did I not suffer for you from the
first moment I entered the room! I foresaw all that has happened;
a hundred times I was upon the point of mentioning it to you. I
knew that the S----s and T----s would quit the assembly rather
than stay in your company. I knew the Count could not {132} break
with them; and now all the talk" -- I endeavoured to conceal my
emotion, and asked her what talk? "Oh! how much it has already
cost me!" said the amiable girl, and tears came into her eyes. --
I could scarce contain myself -- I was ready to throw myself at
her feet. "Explain yourself," I cried. -- Her tears flowed, and I
was quite frantic. She wiped them away, without endeavouring to
hide them. "You know my aunt," she continued; "she was present,
and good God! in what a light does she consider the affair!
Werter, what lessons have I heard last night and this morning
upon my connection with you! I have been obliged to hear you
debased and run down; and I could not, I dared not say much in
your defence." -- Every word was a dagger; she did not know that
in pity to me she should have concealed all that she informed me
of. -- She told me too all the impertinent nonsense that would be
circulated upon the occasion, and how the malicious would {133}
triumph; how they would rejoice that my pride was humbled; and
how happy it would make them to see me punished for that want of
esteem for others, with which I had often been reproached. This
is what she told me, and in a manner which shewed the warmest
interest; this is what I was forced to hear -- it awakened all my
passions, and I still breathe rage and fury. Would that I could
find a man who dared banter me on this event! -- I would
sacrifice him instantly to my resentment; it would be a relief to
me to discharge my fury on the first object I met; -- a hundred
times have I caught up a sword to give vent to my oppressed
heart. There is a noble race of horses, which will instinctively
open a vein with their teeth, when they are heated by a long
course, in order to breathe more freely -- I am often tempted to
open a vein, and procure for myself everlasting liberty.
